1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a print server apparatus, an information processing method, and a program.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a photographic printing system with a photographic print producing apparatus has received order information, that is information about an order to image data. There has been a technique for detecting the status of development processing such as the start, the middle, and the end of processing in the photographic print producing apparatus corresponding to the order information. The technique prohibits a subsequent undeveloped photographic film from being inputted until at least any one of the statuses is detected, so that the development processing can be associated with the undeveloped photographic film corresponding to the order information on a one-to-one basis. This technique realizes the development processing of the undeveloped photographic film corresponding to the order information correctly and surely (refer to Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2007-183359).
If failure occurs in a print server of a network print system, a client set in a backup server can act as the server. Accordingly, there has been such a technique as to enable printing from the network printer in response to an irregular stop of the server. More specifically, in the system in which print data is spooled by each client, only job information is transmitted to the server, and the server executes job sequence control, the job sequence control is also stored in a client which is set as a backup server. If the server irregularly stops in this system, the client functions instead of the server and each of other clients confirms whether the jobs registered by each client are correctly registered to allow reproducing normal print output (refer to Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-240470).
In the system discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2007-183359, however, once an order reception device is shut down, order information and a status acquired from the development processing may be erased.
In the system discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-240470, on the other hand, a client computer other than a dedicated server is set as the backup server to solve an issue which may arise if the dedicated server is shut down.
In the system discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-240470, however, at least another backup server other than the dedicated server is required to cause an issue that a resource is increased. Further, while the dedicated server for managing job information (corresponding to order information in the print system) and status is being operated, information needs to be copied to the backup server as needed. This operation increases traffic between the dedicated server and the backup server. The spool needs to be made on the side of the client. Further, there is another issue that if the dedicated server is shut down when the copy is not yet ended, the status of the job information which has not yet been stored in the backup server cannot be confirmed.
More specifically, the above issues may occur under the condition that a network problem between the dedicated server and the backup server and/or the compulsive shut-down of the dedicated server occur. Further, if a job identification (ID) is acquired again from the client after the backup server is established, the whole job information needs to be checked. The job information refers to a document name, an owner, the number of pages, a sheet size, a data size, and priority information of print data. It cannot be said that there is nothing to coincide with each other, so that accuracy cannot be estimated.